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Arup Saves $1M by Eliminating Unused Software

By Tabitha Naylor Contributing Writer

A few days ago, the global leader in IT efficiency software, 1E, announced that Arup, a major structural engineering firm, has selected AppClarity and Shopping.

AppClarity is a license optimization tool which harnesses System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) and runs analytics from its database. Shopping is an enterprise app store allowing users to select and install their own software within minutes of the original request from 1E.

To save IT helpdesk costs, aware of a forthcoming true-up where expenditure on applications could run over $1.5 million, Arup sought to find and eliminate unused software on its PCs and streamline software deployment.

This Efficient IT project with 1E has saved the firm $1 million.

Software was the second-biggest line item at Arup, after staff costs. On average, of total IT expenses, software spends account for 40 percent – with 70 percent spent on desktop software such as Adobe (News - Alert) and Microsoft products.

The Global Automation Team Lead at Arup, led by Richard Barnes, notes that the IT team set out to see how efficient that spend was. For more than 90 consecutive days, the team agreed to reclaim all software that had not been used.

Image via Shutterstock

“We were able to uninstall around $940,000 worth of software – about 17,000 installations,” commented Barnes. “AppClarity has lessened the ‘administrative nightmare’ of detecting installed but unused software.”

As well as avoiding unnecessary software costs now and in the future, they now have a much-needed, transparent view of application compliance and a simple detection process in place to find and eliminate unused software.

They have saved $1.16 million on software deployment costs over two years with Shopping, which equates to 148,137 software installs processed, saving more than 37,000 man hours of IT time which were better spent on core tasks.

He concluded by stating that they have a happy team of internal customers, who find using the tool as easy as ordering from iTunes or Amazon.